Tea Cosies and Tales of Woe
by Alidiabin
Summary: "Would you like some tea, my dear?" A series of conversations between Ziva and Ducky over tea. Each chapter is stand alone. First one, is a tag to Season 3's Silver War. Cannon, most of the time. S3 mostly at this point.


"My dear," Ducky declared as she slipped into the autopsy suite. The doors swooshed. A sound she was still getting used to.

The room was cool, and her new colleagues had taken to complaining about the summer heat. They had reacted in horror to just how hot Israel could get. McGee had all but fainted when she told him of an army drill, she once did, where she carried her heavy back through the desert, the mid afternoon sun beating down on her. She had spared them the details of the deep aching sunburn, and near dehydration that she had suffered afterwards.

"Doctor," she said with a smile, as she walked toward him, manila folder in hand. "Tony said we need your autograph, that is the same as a signature, yes?"

She wondered, if she would ever understand Tony and his word plays. This meant that, and that meant something else entirely. She had read in his dossier that Anthony D. DiNozzo Junior often hid behind jokes, and references, and she was discovering that observation was spot on.

"Call me Ducky," the good doctor said again, with a smile. He had told her that four times since she had started at NCIS, each time with a sweet smile. The folder was handed to the doctor and he scribbled in the signature section. "And this should suffice."

"Thank you, Doctor," she said, the good doctor smiled back. This man was incapable of malice she decided. "Ducky."

She did not make haste to leave. There is nothing but endless paperwork waiting for her upstairs. She did not remember Mossad requiring so much paperwork. McGee has squirreled himself away in Abby's lab, something to do with computers. Abby did not like her, and Ziva knew this. It is almost comical, how much it felt like high school. Both women had come to the unspoken understanding that Abby's lab is out of bounds for Ziva, unless she was accompanied by one of the boys.

Since, the paperwork day started, Tony has been bored. Bored and whiny. He has talked a mile a minute about complete nonsense. He had thrown rubber bands across the squadroom. He has asked Ziva questions about Mossad, how disappointed he was that her career was rather different from his beloved James Bonds'. Gibbs had managed to the silence any further discussion for a while.

Then Gibbs disappeared, without a word. So without the boss to tell them to be quiet, they had gone through Tony's top 100 movies, with Tony wanting to know how many she had seen. He had been disappointed that she had only seen four. In reality she had seen two, but had read the books for the other two, so she figured it counted. The book was probably better.

Tony had been flabbergasted that she had never seen Casablanca, but had listened when she told him about the actual city. He had asked her if she had been to the replica Rick's cafe that had been built the previous year. She had smiled, and revealed no but she had killed a man who went by the name Rick. That had excited Tony, and he had continued to go off on his tangent about the movie.

"I never did thank you, my dear," Ducky uttered as he moved across the autopsy room, and switched on an electric kettle. It was the same shade of silver as the autopsy tables.

The kettle started to boil. The steam crept up the wall. A primary school science lesson told her that because the autopsy room was so cold, the steam would cause condensation.

"For what, Ducky?" she asked, tucking the folder under her arm.

"Saving my life," Ducky whispered, as he opened the draw and pulled out some tea.

Her eyes widen at the tea. It was proper tea. Not, the paper doused in boiling water that various diners have tried to sell her, since she landed in America. Well, the country dumped tea in the ocean to declare independence, what should you expect she could sometimes hear in Ari's voice. The rich smell of the tea, filled the autopsy room, overpowering the scent of bleach and sterility.

Suddenly, she found herself thinking of things she had not thought of in years. Her mother and Aunt gossiping over tea and a packet of cigarettes. How, her mother would lament about the state of her marriage, and Aunt Nettie would tell Rivka to leave Eli. To take the children and run. She never did of course. Ziva then thought of Old Mr Pincus, her mother's friend, who always smelt like tea and old books, and had numbers etched into his arm. The old man, who even years after her mother's death sent her postcards. She thought of the sweet tea Ari had made for her, after Tali's funeral. The siblings had sat wordlessly, trying to understand why their little sister had been taken from them. Tali had been the best of them, and both of them would have been willing to die in her place. The tea she had made when she returned to Tel Aviv, Ari's body in a box. That tea had gone cold on her kitchen counter.

"I was just doing my job, Doctor," Ziva uttered.

Her job was to take lives, and she took out Elaine Burns, with the flick of a wrist. Just like her father had taught her all those years ago, in the olive groves, while her mother cooked and hummed old songs. He would have been proud, she had thought idly as the drove back to base.

Tony had told half the Navy Yard, about Ziva's abilities with a knife, and now the dweebs from accounting shift nervously, whenever she has stepped into the elevator. She was already someone to be feared, and she had not even been there a week. Tony thinks its cool. She does not.

She was the sharp end of the spear, her father had once told her proudly.

"Does the Torah, not say if you save one life, you save the whole world?" the good doctor asked.

She smiled, of course Ducky knew something of the Torah. The old man always greeted her with a warm Shalom, when they first saw each other each day. Ducky, always seemed to have a new story to tell, or snippet of information. While, Tony and McGee sometimes rolled their eyes at Ducky's long winded tales, she found herself looking forward to them. It was nice to have something to look forward too, she had decided, one night when sleep was futile.

"Something like that," she said.

The autopsy fridge hummed. The good doctor pulled out a cup, and then another from the draw. The loose tea leaves made their way into the bottom of the white teapot. The water finished boiling.

"Would you like some tea, my dear?" Ducky asked. "I am sure Jethro could spare you for another thirty minutes. And Mr Palmer, does not yet appreciate a good brew."

"Yes," she said, "I would like that."

"Well then," Ducky said motioning to the table he had set up.

She took the stool that Ducky had pointed at, and rested her feet on the bars of the autopsy tray that was serving as their table. Ducky poured the tea into her cup, and she lifted the cup into her hands, letting the warmth sit there.

 **A/N** :

I have a few ideas for other episodes. Mostly season 3. Each chapter will be stand alone.

Am I using this as an excuse to watch reruns, why yes.

No promises on updates.

I don't own a thing. Not a bleedin' thing.


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